Boston's Tom Scholz keeps band moving forward

Boston's Tom Scholz, the man who has written nearly all of the group's songs and created the band's signature sound, often says he regretted allowing Columbia Records to release the second Boston album, "Don't Look Back," when it did.

He says he felt he was rushed into releasing the album before it was truly done, and he made a firm decision then.

"Basically, I decided after the second album that I just wasn't going to get pushed into releasing something before I thought it was the best that I could do," he says in a recent phone interview.

Scholz has made good on that promise, and as a result, there have been only four Boston albums released since "Don't Look Back" in 1978.

Scholz says he thought he was close to completing "Life, Love & Hope" in 2008, saying at the time he felt he was one or two songs short of a finished album.

Then another five-plus years and two more Boston tours came and went before "Life, Love & Hope" finally arrived in December.

"I did record a few more songs than I anticipated, and actually made some fairly significant changes to some of the songs I had already done," Scholz says, explaining part of the reason why the latest album arrived when it did.

"That's always the problem, of course. I never run out of ideas. I just run out of time to try them. The longer I live with it, the more I experiment, the longer it takes. It's really a vicious cycle.

"In fairness, there were some unforeseeable delays during the recording of this album, and we did go out on four tours (after "Corporate America")," he adds. "Every time we do that, even if the tour itself only runs for three months or so, it basically takes me out for more like eight months. It's a long time up front for planning, set design, set arrangements, arrangements for the songs, new segues and so forth. So each time [we tour] it's a major undertaking for me. I mean, it's a total immersion thing. So I don't record once I get in gear to go on tour."

One thing that separates Scholz from many artists is he almost always works alone throughout the writing and recording process, usually playing the parts himself or supervising every last detail of the music and vocals.

That was the way he worked when he did the final batch of demos for Boston's self-titled 1976 debut album — although he says for a time he thought it might be wasted effort and he would give up on the music business without ever releasing the album.

"I had no expectations that it was going to have a massive audience," Scholz says. "In fact, I was told after people heard the [earlier] demos that there was no chance this was going to be a big success because disco was the new incoming thing. So I was prepared for relative failure in a commercial sense. But I just wanted to do something that I liked and I was proud of.

"So the demos that I made were strictly based on how I wanted to hear the music, and voila!. For the first time ever, I suddenly had three major labels contacting me saying they were interested in my recordings."

The rest, of course, is history. The "Boston" album became one of the most popular rock albums ever — its sales are now more than 17 million — and hits from the album like "More Than a Feeling," "Long Time" and "Peace of Mind" still get regular airplay on classic rock radio.

The one time Scholz let others into the writing and recording process was for "Corporate America." It was a mistake, he says.

"'Corporate America' was the aberration," Scholz says. "That was the one time that I didn't do it all myself. I involved other people, other writers, other players, even people working on production. It was an experiment and it was a failed one. I tried it. It didn't work.

"The first thing I did after that record was done was decide I would never do that again."

So Scholz started the 11-year journey to finishing "Life, Love & Hope" by once again taking control, meticulously crafting the eight new compositions on the album.

He also revisited three songs from "Corporate America." He went back to two of the songs — "Someone" and "You Gave Up on Love" — because he was unhappy with the versions on "Corporate America."

"I wanted a do-over," Scholz says. "I blew it. I knew it, and I said someday, somewhere, somehow I'm going to get a chance to release these songs again. I thought that the songs themselves had a lot of merit, and I didn't want them to let them get lost.

"And the other one, 'Didn't Mean to Fall in Love,' that's actually the only song on this album that I didn't write in its entirety. Curly Smith came up with a verse, chord changes. And he and a friend of his came up with a lot of the lyrics in it. I loved the song, so I just basically wanted to give that song another chance at a wider audience hopefully."